Home » Restaurant News

Restaurant News & Views

Review of the Reviews - National

Babbo

Giles Coren, The Times (Rating: 2.67)

Pretty clear advice from the critic on this Mayfair Italian: “steer clear of Babbo”. It is, it transpires, “one of the new breed of Italian restaurants in Mayfair (Cipriani set the trend, Dolada followed most recently) that serve competent food at ridiculous prices and make you feel ill to the bottom of your mortal soul”. Service was “sickening” too.

Leon

Lisa Markwell, The Independent on Sunday (Rating: 14/20)

The critic visits a chain whose “ethos is one of local, seasonal, good-quality produce made into crowd-pleasing food at a realistic (if not cheap) price”. “The lengthy queues every lunchtime are testament to the chain’s success”, says the critic but “[w]hat’s surprising is how well it works as an evening venue” too.

Dinings

Jasper Gerard, The Telegraph (Rating: 8/10)

“If today there is a cuisine with a little of the excitement the world felt when it found boeuf bourguignon, it has to be Japan’s”, the critic proclaims. “Japanese food has a simplicity and clarity that wows us”. That’s certainly the case at this Marylebone cellar: only one dish mildly disappoints, and everything else is a real success.

Ba Shan

Matthew Norman, The Guardian

Especially considering he has to eat two Sichuan-style meals in the same lunchtime, the critic is impressed by the food at this eminent Soho spot.

Crabshakk, Glasgow

Tracey MacLeod, The Independent (Rating: Food 3/5 stars, Ambience 4/5 stars, Service 4/5 stars)

The critic visits a “seafood specialist” which “has become the hottest restaurant in town, despite its location on an unlovely stretch of arterial road a couple of miles west of the city centre”. She finds an establishment where a huge amount has been “crammed into the tiny space”, and where “the food didn't quite fulfill the promise of a menu which reads beautifully”. Overall, though, she found “plenty to like”.

Glamorous, Manchester

Jay Rayner, The Observer

A review of a restaurant occupying “a football pitch-sized slab of floor space in the Manchester business centre run by Wing Yip, the behemoths of catering suppliers to Britain's Asian restaurant business”. In spite of its popularity with Chinese families, the critic does not find standards invariably impressive.

Comments (0)